


nothing new under the sun

by sharpshooter (starlatine)



Category: The Sisters Brothers - Patrick deWitt
Genre: Brother/Brother Incest, Canon-Typical Violence, Dom/sub Undertones, Drunk Sex, Hand Jobs, Historical Inaccuracy, M/M, Mildly Dubious Consent, Murder Kink, POV First Person, Praise Kink, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-02-01
Updated: 2018-02-01
Packaged: 2019-02-27 18:01:18
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,291
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13253649
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starlatine/pseuds/sharpshooter
Summary: I followed his commands, as anyone would. This all occurred in the time early in our careers when we were still as close as two men could be and I trusted him absolutely.The year is 1846, and a routine job for Charlie and Eli Sisters fails to go as planned.





	1. IN TOWN

**Author's Note:**

> Historical accuracy and timeline coherence are loose, to say the least. 
> 
> Content warning for canon-typical violence, language, and all other business one could expect to run into from this canon.

**OREGON COUNTRY, 1846**

  


At first, the job was mundane, if not smooth or pleasant. Immediately following what we thought was the end of it, I was still in one of my black moods, the thrill of violence having abated not whatsoever, and Charlie must have noticed I was hard and still panting from the fight, for he laid a wide hand on the side of my neck, tilted his head, and said, “Whatever are we going to do with you?”

My brother has always possessed the power to move people, myself included, when he puts on his smiling face, as he did then. I knew him well enough to know that, in that particular instance, he was really smiling because he was pleased with himself for his efficiency and ingenuity at tricking the men out from inside their home. It was a ruse he had come up with recently: he knocked on the door of our unwary targets and pretended to be the proprietor of the local saloon, going door-to-door in an effort to return some belongings that were found left behind. While he was doing so, I had loomed around the corner, waiting upon his words, a shadow of devilish intent, until it was time to come to blows. When the leader of the gang came down, I seized upon him, twisting his neck beneath my hands ‘til it crunched, a familiar and satisfying sound to my ears. Leaving the miserable creature where he lay, I followed Charlie up the stairs, my heartbeat loud enough to drown out all else and all sense of fear gone from my body. There was only anticipation of bloodshed to come and the sense that we were invincible, he and I, having gone through these motions so many times before.

I knew not what the crime of these men was, but I had little pity for them. Their shabby hiding-hole was clearly both their distillery and their hovel for living; it was full of haphazard stills and kegs stacked up close to the ceiling amidst piles of dirty blankets. When I thought back on it later, I assumed the Commodore was displeased with these interlopers for running moonshine through his territory without his writ, but at the time such rationalizations were beyond me. All I could see or think of was the task before us. Charlie kicked the door in and the pandemonium begun; the men scrambled for their weapons, but we had the advantage of surprise. It was too close of quarters to fire safely in the dark, so we acted as we did in such situations: I lunged at the men with my not inconsiderable bulk and strength and threw them each off balance, tossing them to the floor, where Charlie methodically opened their throats like a butcher amid pigs. It took a minute in total before the room was quiet.

That is how we came to be there, soaked in blood and standing in the main room of the men’s den, Charlie’s hand on my neck. In the near-dark, his clothes looked black, though I knew them to be newly red. The end of a job usually brings me anxiety as much as relief, for I dislike those in-between times where we wait to hear our newest orders. In any case, the job had been unpleasant even before this point, and I was glad to be rid of it regardless of whatever life would bring next for the two of us.

In hindsight, that very feeling of gratitude must explain my reaching out to brush away a globule of some indeterminate bodily fluid that had come to rest in his whiskers. As far back as I can remember there had been Charlie, luminous and charming and sinister. I suppose I had a feeling that I owed it all to him, as much as he vexed me, including my continued stake in the world of the living. His face has always been very dear and familiar. He petted me, soothing me like he would a dog—Charlie has a good hand with animals of all sizes, they trust him, as people do—and so instead of retiring to be alone and stroke myself until I calmed down, as I sometimes would following a fight, I leaned into his touch, feeling it to be my only connection to civilization and order. At the same time, the feeling of his rough palm against my skin stirred something else in me, setting my pulse racing even as I knew he was attempting to calm it. 

He pressed his thumbs into the skin below my jaw and above my neck, just lightly enough to present the threat of control. The feeling brought me back into myself slightly. He seemed to see the change on my face, for he smacked my cheek and pulled away from me.

“This is a rat hole if I’ve ever seen one.” Charlie strode around the room, taking it in with the air of a conquering prince who finds his latest annexation below his standard, and stopped next to one of the men. He pushed the head with the tip of his boot; it rolled over pathetically. “Shall we clear it out now? I’d be happy never to return, and I suppose these fellows would agree.”

The Commodore paid us well enough for our being only a few years at the job, but there was an understanding in this line of work that most anything we hadn’t been told to bring back for him was ours to keep. My clothes were soaked through with blood, as were most of the men’s, and I briefly regretted our not dispatching them in a cleaner fashion. It was unlikely I’d find anything well-fitting, let alone in a style that I would have chosen myself, but as I picked around the room, rifling through the men’s pockets for valuables, I thought that I’d settle for any shirt that looked like it could remember being white.

The men carried pocket change and little else. As I reluctantly relieved a corpse of its pair of mostly-intact trousers, Charlie helped himself to a flask from one of the tables. He took a rather adventurous first swig and grimaced, but still swallowed. “I wonder that the Commodore didn’t just let them run themselves out of business, with a product like this.”

“I’m sure he’d appreciate your saying so,” I said, and he scoffed. I pressed on. “‘Hello, sir! As you know, my time as your hired muscle has given me ample opportunity to review your methods, and in exchange for an increased stipend of—’”

“Oh, stop it, Eli,” he said, but I could tell he was only playing at being angry with me. He was still glowing faintly with success. I could not stop myself from grinning, somewhat manically; my hands still shook faintly and I felt restless in my core.

In the end, we found a small cache of earnings in the drawer of a desk with a false bottom, a few pieces of clothing that might help us make it out of town before targets were planted on our backs, and a rather fancy pocket-watch engraved with the initials _C.S._ , which Charlie was so tickled by I let him keep it without making him pay it out in my take of the cache. We carried the first man’s body out from the view of the street and left him in a pile with his brethren. The hotel was a meager thing and I was quite certain our bed-sheets had not been washed since they were sewn, but I felt as though I were a tub of water that had been knocked over and now sat, empty, drying out in the sun. I was ready to be rid of the place, but first I needed to collapse.

I made toward the door, but Charlie stepped in front of me. “Here.” He spat in his hand, which he then rubbed over my nose and cheek. “You look like you’re covered in jam.”

“It’s dark outside,” I protested, mostly because I found Charlie’s occasional instincts toward the parental to be vaguely ludicrous.

“I suppose you’d be happy if I just left you like you were, then,” he said. I have an inconsistent talent for what I consider to be clever remarks, though I am often the only person to hold such an opinion, but nothing came to me in that moment. I gritted my teeth and let him believe he had won that particular joust. Tomorrow would bring new opportunities, as it always does.

  


The moon waxed close to full that night and the street was desolate. We were the only people out of doors, but I still drew my coat tighter around myself and hunched my shoulders, as if this would be enough to confuse potential onlookers. It was cold and our shoulders knocked together as we walked. I could not remove from my mind the image of Charlie, knife in hand, assured as an avenging angel. My body seemed to move too slowly for my mind, and I shivered.

Typically, Charlie would’ve already begun narrating all the things he’d do with his portion of the take, but he seemed oddly introspective. Since that was usually my role in our partnership and one I was rewarded none too well for, I felt simultaneous urges to mock him and to compliment his thoughtful air. In the end I missed the chance to question him about it, because we were entering the town’s paltry excuse for a lodging house and I’ve never cared to draw attention to ourselves unless it benefited us to do so. My heart began racing once more as we crossed the threshold, but the night doorman couldn’t be bothered to look up from his newspaper, let alone take note of the two strangers wandering in well after dark. We made it into the hall without so much as a batted eyelash. However minor the challenge, the thrill of getting away with something crept up my spine once again. We took the stairs two at a time.

Charlie fumbled with the lock and I was forced to bite my lip to suppress the glee spreading across my heart from showing on my face. As soon as the door shut behind us, Charlie begun shedding his bloody layers and depositing them on the floor wherever they fell. We’d left the curtains half-open, so the room was alight with the cold glow of the moonlight. I removed my coat and, surveying the state of my clothes in fair lighting and a sober state of mind for the first time that evening, felt a twinge of regret. I’d picked up that waistcoat from a charming shop in Eugene and was particularly fond of it. I folded my various layers in a pile in the corner of the room, as if the care with which they were laid to rest would make up for the hardship they had been put through.

The room was bitingly cold. Charlie was sprawled on his bed, down to his long underwear and wearing a pensive expression, cradling the bottle of moonshine he’d taken from the still in the crook of his arm. “I wish we had girls. What kind of town doesn’t have girls?”

I thought that I could’ve hardly spoken to a girl then, let alone done other things. Females were, in my mind, associated with softness and light, while the feeling I’d not managed to entirely shake since we first knocked on the door of the distillery den was a growing impulse towards chaos. I didn’t voice this, however, having some sense of self-preservation. Instead, I sat on the edge of his bed and reached out for the bottle. I’d never been much of a drinker, but I could see Charlie would partake regardless and knew that as long as I drained some of the supply, he would have a harder time working himself into a stupor. I also had little desire to mother him, at least until the morning, when it would be inevitable.

He held it out to me a little less than his full arm’s reach, making me lean closer to him to take hold of it. There was a curious look in his eye as he watched me, and I drank deeper than I had any real desire to. I was not able to suppress a raging bout of coughs. The stuff was truly foul. Charlie had a good laugh at my misfortune and clapped me on the back with what I felt was more force than strictly necessary. His hand lingered, splayed against my spine, and I felt both as though I couldn’t tear my eyes away from his face and as though God himself were willing me to do so.

“We’ve come a ways, haven’t we?” His voice was softer than I was accustomed to hearing it, and I was unsure whether he was reflecting on our spoils or our state of filth. I nodded. His hand begun to rub circles into my skin through the cotton of my shirt, and I felt my cheeks go hot. Between my beard and the poor quality of the light I hoped he couldn’t tell, but I’ve never been skilled at hiding anything from him.

At last he took his hand away and I breathed easily once more. He lay back against the headboard, his legs splayed nonchalantly, and I watched the way his throat worked as he swallowed more of our ill-gotten prize. He corked it and set it down on the floor. “Come now, Eli, you’re thinking so hard you’re going to give yourself a stomach ache.”

“I’m not thinking,” I said, aware it was as stupid a retort as had ever been given.

“You are a hopeless liar,” he replied with much authority, and after a moment went on. “I will never understand your hatred of drinking. After an evening of bloody work like that, it does a body good to reward itself.”

I wasn't much for drinking because I saw fine men become incapacitated due to its charms, and because it made me feel reckless in a way I did not trust and could already feel settling over me. I knew that speaking my true feelings on the subject would lead to an argument, and though I have passed many otherwise empty hours on the road provoking him to battle, I did not then wish to disturb our mutual pleasure and relaxation. “Perhaps you are right, and I am being prudish.”

“Undoubtedly, brother, but I will forgive you for it today.” He cast an arm across the pillow, opening his body to my gaze completely. I tried to look away, but the drink was running through me already and I found myself coming back to the sight at hand. Charlie is broad-shouldered and narrow in the hips, his proportions trim and pleasing in every way. His eyes bored into me; I knew he had caught me in my observation. The corner of his mouth curled upwards and I could not read his expression, whether smirk or scowl. Even so, I felt that he had sprawled for my benefit. There was no one else in the room. Charlie has always needed an audience.

“Come here,” he said to me, and patted his knee like a father would. This took me aback entirely. I felt frozen in place, caught in an act of treachery and made into a spectacle for it. In response to my hesitation, he spread his legs and leaned back further, the picture of ease. I could see the outline of his cock through his underclothes, half-erect, and it struck me that perhaps he too is affected by killing, in a different manner than myself. Where I always feel my blood quicken when engaged in violence, he is pleased with himself following a perceived success and has an urge to demonstrate his potency in other regards.

Despite the drink, his eyes were even and colder than steel. “It seems my rebuke was more effective than I knew. Have you forgotten _how_ to think?”

I was pinned by the force of his recognition, fixed to my place on his bed with one of my hands on the blanket between our bodies, caught between reaching out and shirking away. Where would I go? Though I worried that he was provoking me, seeing how far he could pull me by the force of his words only to laugh at me when I was caught, I could see his state of excitement as clear as I could feel it in my own body. I felt the phantom touch of his fingers as if they still rested on my back, pushing me towards him.

I moved slowly, watching him for a reaction. I crossed the blanket on all fours as though approaching an animal in the forest. His lips parted and his smirk turned into a smile, broad, with teeth. I could see the wet tip of his tongue hiding inside of his mouth like a snake. “Yes,” he said, “Come along, Eli, that’s it.”

A hand buried itself in my hair and pulled me up. I was brought up to my knees, our faces very close together. “Put your hands away, yes, one leg over, like that.” I looked at him as doubtfully as I could manage, for I’m significantly taller and thicker than my brother and wasn’t sure what he wanted or expected to happen, but I was not fully in control of my body then. I followed his commands, as anyone would. This all occurred in the time early in our careers when we were still as close as two men could be and I trusted him absolutely.

Cautiously, I straddled his legs. I had to shut my eyes then; I could feel his strong thighs under mine, and the knowledge that the bulge at his groin rested against mine was driving me completely mad. “There you are, friend,” he continued, his voice low and thoughtless. The tone was soothing, but the words were spoken as though not of importance in themselves, like when one murmurs to a finicky horse.

“You did well today,” Charlie said, and he ran his hands up and down my thighs. He pressed hard and the touch changed everything. Something within me kindled to a flame. Dry kindling to a match. I cried aloud and covered my face in shame. 

My body surged into the feeling of his skin on mine, and in an effort not to betray the degree to which his attentions affected me I turned my head to watch the flimsy curtain drift across the window pane. His knuckles brushed against the side of my cock, fully hard then, and I bit my lip as not to cry out. 

He jerked me roughly through my underclothes. I imagined it was similar to how he did it to himself. His grip was not stronger than my own, but his movements were quicker. I had been with a small count of women before then, all of them whores, but this felt entirely different. Charlie seemed indifferent to his desirability, instead carrying himself with the same flawless self-confidence as always, that mysterious quality in him that transformed his thoughts into reality. He was himself, and I loved him always, and it set me on fire; even then he must have known it.

Like earlier, following the fight, he used his free hand to pet my side. The gesture was usually employed to settle, but here it threatened to rend me. He had only been at it for a few minutes, but I was already fit to burst. My chest roiled with a strength of desire that frightened me. I covered my face with my hands. I wanted to block my sight and prevent him from seeing the flush on my cheeks and have something to bite into to stop the bestial sounds rumbling out of my chest. I had never in my life felt so stripped as I did then, as though Charlie saw into every corner of me, as though I was hardly a person outside of the terrible hunger and longing he was capable of pulling out of me. In a sense I think I was right.

At some point we had come to lean even closer together. I felt a drop of sweat fall from his face onto my neck. His hips ground against mine, only a few thin layers of cotton separating us, and I grunted automatically. Through it all, part of my thoughts were still occupied with the knowledge that if someone were to accuse us of doing this very thing, I would kill them on the spot. Whether the insinuation were true changed nothing. My mind is rarely still—except in those moments where life and death are on the table, which may be what draws me to such circumstances—and my overwhelming need for him had not overtaken my confusion, which was still joined by fear. I was afraid of the intensity of my feeling, afraid of what prompted my brother to reach for me when he never had before in two decades and several years on the earth, and afraid of what his face would reveal when he woke in the morning with a headache, a bad temper, and the memory of my surrender. None of this were enough to stop me from grasping unconsciously at his shoulder, so warm, muscled, and familiar under my hand.

“Charlie,” I rasped. “Have… have mercy.” I didn’t know whether I implored him to release me or to bring me my release.

“It’s never been one of my more preeminent qualities,” he said, and his voice was coarse, short for breath. 

“Lord God,” I said, and any more words were beyond me. He twisted his wrist, experimenting—I spared a thought for whether he had done this before, and the thought of my brother kneeling beside the Commodore behind the closed door of our employer’s drinking den flashed through my brain before I shut it away. Even the idea made my pulse race in anger and my cock spurt fluid; I clenched my fingers on his shoulder hard enough I felt him wince. It brought me no little satisfaction.

My eyes had drifted shut again, but I felt and heard his free hand undo first his fastenings, and then mine. What little barrier existed was gone; he held us together in his hand and tugged. My hips moved involuntarily against his, thrusting into his grip further, and I felt him move against me in kind, like we were boys again, wrestling on the dirt floor of our mother’s house in the way we could before I overtook Charlie in size enough to remove the challenge. A growl went through me and I heard him echo it. That was all it took. I came into his hand, onto his cock; he let go of me, and after a few tugs he shot onto my navel, which I would later come to think of as rude but barely registered at the time.

There were a few seconds where I was essentially mindless. I could not tell you how I extracted myself from my perch upon his lap. I have no memory of getting off of him, but I know I pulled away, and I acutely remember the moment my feet touched the cold wooden floor. I couldn’t look at him; for the first time in my life, he felt alien to me, something I couldn’t predict or wholly understand. I moved to my own bed, grateful that the excuse for a hotel at least had double rooms, and ignored the sticky mess that was my underclothes and the tremors that still ran through my limbs. My sheets were cold. I turned toward the window, the covers around my ears, and reflected on how very large and desolate a cramped little room could be.

  


The following morning begun as expected. There was little to note: Charlie was groggy and ill-tempered, not to the degree of serious illness, just enough that he was miserable and maudlin. I had it fairly lucky then, as his mornings-after would only increase in severity in the years to come, though I did not know it at the time.

In a way I was glad for his sullenness. We hardly looked at each other, so I was able to put the events of the previous evening out of my mind, instead focusing on collecting our things. Charlie settled our accounts, keeping the proprietress distracted long enough for me to dispose of our soiled clothes in a basket of dirty table linens. A scullery girl caught me walking out of the staff area; she opened her mouth as if to scold me, but I held her gaze, and she must have seen something in my face that told her not to broach the issue.

The hotel served a facsimile of a breakfast, and Charlie shoved his hash around his plate for almost a half-hour until I reached over and begun eating it myself, not out of hunger but a desire to be rid of the place.

“I paid for that,” he protested, but could not so much as muster the strength to slap my fork away.

“Indeed you did.”

He held his head in his hands. “You are smug and ungrateful.”

Neither of these statements were true: I felt no gladness at his pain when my own thoughts were moody and distracted, and was not sure for what I was supposed to owe him gratitude. “And you are going to lose us half a day if you don’t take hold of yourself.”

“I will ready the horses, then, if I am a burden to you here. Enjoy my breakfast.” Charlie pushed his bench out from the table loudly, making sure it scraped its way across the floor, and stalked out of the building.

I do not mind my own company, but then I was not sure whether I were worse off weathering Charlie’s headache or eating half a plate of cold potatoes in grease alone. On the other side of the room, by the counter, I saw the scullery girl whisper to the proprietress, pointing unsubtly in my direction behind her hand. I took that as a sign, and left Charlie’s food alone.

When I found him in the stable, he’d tacked up his horse and was rifling through his bag for something. I wondered briefly if it were a ruse to avoid having to look me in the face. Turning to my own horse, to whom I gave a gentlemanly ruffle of the mane, I said, “The owner suspects we are criminals, if she didn’t already. We’d best make our way.”

He fastened his bag back up and attached it to his saddle. I could not see anything in his hand he’d taken from it. “Good thing one of us is ready to leave, then.”

I never truly win an argument with Charlie, though I usually try, but I decided that, for the day, I was better off keeping my mouth closed unless I was forced to open it.

Our direction was southwest to Oregon City. There was a river crossing involved, which would be tedious, but the ride there had been fair and I didn’t anticipate much to delay us on the return.

We made our way out on horseback, at fair speed, with dead men’s clothes on our backs. Before we hit the main trail, we passed by the distillery shack. It looked perfectly undisturbed from how we’d left it, but I still felt a chill. Charlie took the lead position, as was our routine, and I followed at shouting distance. It was a sharp and cold morning, the kind that signals winter’s steady approach, and the grass crunched underhoof.


	2. THE TRAIL

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Updating your WIP for the first time in ten months? It's likelier than you think. I haven't forgotten! I'm just slow and writing first person POV is hard.

Charlie taught me to ride a horse. We had a real mangy specimen of a plow-mare then; she had just enough brains to buck, and I remember him tying me to the saddle with some kind of harness he rigged up from leather strips and baling twine. My feet barely reached the stirrups. Charlie has always been a man to me, even when he was a boy, and when he told me it was time for me to ride to town on my own I devoted my entire being to the mastery of whatever challenges he set out in front of me. I remember our mother watching balefully through the dirty kitchen window of our farmhouse as he lead the mare around the yard. I held the reins, though I did not know what to do with them, and he steered the beast by the bridle and dodged her frequent and vengeful bites. Most clearly of all I remember the moment he let go: he said, “Your turn then, old boy,” and I tried to mimic the way he sat astride her all the times I’d ridden behind him, clinging ‘round his waist. Back straight but shoulders loose, ready for everything, with all the time in the world.

It wasn’t long before I made a few trips to the general store alone whenever Charlie or our mother were otherwise occupied. The store was a magical place to me; it amazed me that one small building could hold everything one could need to be content for one’s entire life. The man behind the counter was kind enough at first, but when I came to make my purchase he asked, cordially, “What’s your name, son? I don’t believe I’ve had the pleasure.”

I squared my shoulders and tried not to stutter. “My name is Eli Sisters.”

My eyes were not much higher than level with his hands, so I’m quite sure I wasn’t imagining it when his hands slowed in their brown-paper wrapping of my package. “Aye,” he said, and that was all, until I turned around to head toward the door. “Take care now,” he said, with a colder tone than I’d ever yet heard.

It was several years yet before I understood why my family name brought me no friends among our neighbors, and several more before I begun to use that fact to my advantage.

Those times were past, however, and my brother and I were quite settled into our lifestyle of lawlessness. We rode in silence out toward the Clackamas. Frequently on these rides back to our nominal home he would tell stories or I would sing or we would play word games, like trying to name all the Presidents or types of birds, but the mood between us was frigid. The scenery was nothing I hadn’t seen before, which made it harder not to dwell on the sorry state of affairs in which I found myself entangled.

I have always followed in Charlie’s lead, except for in those circumstances where it benefitted us to cast ourselves as opposites, which still sprung from the same impulse. It was true that, were we coming back from a successful job in a larger city, Charlie likely would have gone out on the town; I may have accompanied him or may not have, according to my mood. However, the previous night was hardly the first we spent alone, together, in some backwoods hole. It was the first that he touched me purposefully, looked me in the eye and spoke in a way that both shocked me and struck me as perfectly natural. It was not that I had not wanted it; it was that I could not understand why he did, or what he intended to do now that he’d had it.

Our pace was as leisurely as it ever was, and we stopped to camp in a well-worn clearing that had no doubt served many tired riders before ourselves. Conveniently, our travelling routine was so well-established we hardly needed to look at each other as we tied off the horses and made ourselves as comfortable as we could. Charlie made the fire, I tended the horses; I threw some biscuits and leftover corn together in the griddle, he set down our bedrolls. Each of us slept against our horse for warmth and across the fire from each other to prevent an ambush from the rear. The biscuit was dry and stuck to the roof of my mouth. The look on Charlie’s face was certainly no compliment to my cookery, which was generally fine. After the unpleasantness of the morning, I thought it best not to tease him for his pickiness. 

We turned in for bed in a similar fashion: quickly, as though we were a pair of automatons without souls. I lay awake on my side of the fire, my blanket pulled up to just below my eyes. By the pace of his breathing, I knew sleep eluded him also. In my drowsy state, I considered asking him something, though I knew not exactly what: Are we finished, then? Will you find a new partner? Will you ever touch me again, in any regard? Where do you expect me to go, if not with you?

The stars winked, mockingly, overhead. Sleep came slowly and thin.

-

I woke up with the birds. The blankets were covered in a thin layer of dew, which was rare for this late in the season.

Charlie still slept. We'd done little camp-setting the previous evening and there was little to pack up, but I gathered up my effects in an effort to buy time. Ordinarily I would have woken him, but if the chill of the previous night was anything to go by I did not want my face to be the first sight of his day. I myself had not fully forgiven him for his rudeness and volatility.

I felt silly hovering around waiting for him; I elected to assess our surroundings. We'd approached the town a different way than we’d left it, as we'd made several stops between our starting point and our destination and now had no goal but to return to the City, so I had no knowledge of the immediate area beyond what I remembered from the night before. I didn't stray far, not wanting to give Charlie any grounds to complain further on the basis of my abandoning him for a traveling circus.

There was a minor ridge above us, the top of which was about ten minutes' walk from the camp. The wooding was too thick to ride through, which is why we had not made it there the previous night, but the trees were not densely packed and it was an easy stroll on foot. From the ridge's peak, one could see back most of the way we'd come the previous day. We’d made camp not far off the sole trail that wound through the valley, and I could see it extend through the trees like a snake.

The air was sweet and invigorating, though it carried the promise of frost in coming weeks, and I was struck by the picturesque nature of my surroundings. I was a year or two over twenty at this point and had lived out them all in this part of the world, more or less, though our travels were ranging increasingly far as of late. The view itself was nothing particularly impressive, but it conveyed a strong sense of the local character and I found it both stately and comforting. The forest was mainly evergreens, but it was shot through with maples whose leaves were turning; a few had already begun to let them go. Viewed from above the whole effect was melancholy, and for the first time in many days an almost poetical mood came over me. I felt very small. The world was full of wonder and strangeness, and despite my troubles I was lucky to still count myself a part of it.

My reverie was broken when I noticed movement in the upper field of my vision. There was a lone rider making his way down the trail towards us. There was nothing inherently suspicious about this; however, the pace at which he rode—not too fast to exhaust his horse, but nothing close to leisurely—sat ill with me.

I made my way back to our camp with somewhat more haste than I’d left it. Charlie was awake, though it appeared he had not been for long. His hair looked like a fallen bird’s nest, and there was no accounting for the affection the sight of it provoked in me. I dug my nails into my palm.

“The Man of the Wilderness returns.” He continued to face away from me, but his tone was level enough.

“I think we are being followed.”

“Behold his swarthy cheeks and fearless manner. Beasts of the West, beware!” He finished chewing his apple and tossed away the core. “How many?”

“One. But he rides fast from town.”

He rose to his feet from the squat I’d found him in, his movements catlike and graceful. I studied the treeline over his shoulder. “In that case, brother, we had better make good time.”

I was already packed, so it was not three minutes before we hit the trail. My horse nosed at my arm before I mounted her, and I felt, for a moment, guilt that I had only one limp carrot to offer her on a day of what would doubtless be hard riding. She’d borne up well under rough conditions in the past, but I knew that I ought to have exchanged her for a fresher horse before leaving town. I had looked through the stable, but their pickings were meagre and I would rather the devil I knew. She snuffled at my sleeve, her brown eyes blinking sadly, and I wondered, not for the first time, whether life were not simply a series of burdens in constant rotation. 

The way south was largely through forest interspersed with rocky flatlands. We clipped along quite steadily, not stopping for lunch. The trail's winding path and the thick treeline surrounding it meant we couldn't check behind us, but I felt the presence of our pursuer itching at the back of my neck. Part of me still maintained that he may be a courier or a townsman riding out for a doctor, but though I had not been in the business long I had dealt with my share of unsavory situations and accumulated a set of sturdy instincts. All of these warned of the danger at our backs. I felt strongly that waiting around for him to catch up with us would bring nothing but extra work, and I had no desire to engage in any more killing until I had a bath.

One consequence of the predicament was that relations between my brother and I were much improved. The emergence of a foe quickly demonstrates one’s loyalties. Charlie whistled a jaunty tune, one I did not recognize, but I began humming along after a verse or two and even sang along once I'd caught the melody. I had to make up the words as I went, which meant we passed what must have been a half an hour collaborating on a terrible song about an escaped pig; I have no particular gift for rhyming, but it was a sweeter sound than angry silence.

The only thing for it was to ride and hope that our head start was enough to keep him outpaced. The crossing was not far ahead, and though I knew that he may indeed cross after us, it seemed that we would be in a better position once there was a body of water in between us and our enemy.

At one point, Charlie turned his horse around to ride next to me. He nearly always lead us, and as we were trying to make as quick of time as possible I wasn't sure for what purpose he’d pulled up to me, especially when he didn't immediately say anything, just kept pace with my horse, who, it must be said, was proving a credit to her species and not flagging in the least. The trail was narrow, and we rode close enough together for our knees to brush. I glanced over at him; beneath the brim of his hat his face was clear of any expression I could name. His brows were drawn in a way that could have been a squint against the sun or the evidence of the churning of mental gears; one of Charlie's great gifts has always been to make his every statement and action appear effortless, and I did not know what to make of this. It reminded me of the oddly thoughtful air he’d exhibited after we’d finished with the distillery, and the path my thoughts took after that thought made my heart race and goosebumps rise up and down my arms.

I opened my mouth, finding it dry, and swallowed before speaking. "What do you expect from the crossing?"

"It hasn't rained, so I think it shouldn't be anything worth thinking about." He fell silent again, still with that odd crease in his brow. I had assumed he wanted to strategize about our pursuer and what we would do if we were overtaken, but he was in no hurry to speak his mind and I could see no reason why he would be cautious about the subject, such things making up the bulk of our labours. The man was not threatening on his own merits; I was skeptical what kind of challenge a single man could pose to the two of us when we were on our guard. What disquieted me was the idea that there may be more to the job than we'd been told. I had no trust or loyalty to the Commodore besides the vaguely positive associations one has with the dispenser of one's wages. This being said, I was not pleased about the idea we could have been sent into the fray with less than a full understanding of the situation at hand. The Commodore usually dispensed his orders with Charlie, who then passed them on to me, which had always been the way we’d done things, Charlie being more experienced than I and more interested in drinking and smoking and all the other things powerful men liked to do with each other when they dealt, to my understanding.

As if reading my thoughts, Charlie coughed and spoke. “We may have gone about this less carefully than would’ve been wise.” 

I gritted my teeth. “By which you mean?”

“We were told—well, several things, but mainly to root out all the whiskey runner’s people in town.”

“Have we not?”

“We dealt with those we found when we got there. I wonder whether our friend you saw isn’t another who was out when we came calling.”

“And you didn’t think about that? Some would consider this a failure on behalf of the leader of an operation.”

Charlie laughed. “Very rich, coming from the man who—” We were cresting over the hill, then, and in there was a moment in which time itself slowed to a halt. Charlie’s eyes went wide, I turned in the direction of his gaze, and scarcely had the river become visible below us as did the posse of men on horseback assembled at the ford, all facing in our direction as if waiting for two men such as ourselves to make our appearance. Beside me, Charlie reined in his horse hard enough to kick up dust, and proclaimed, “Well, brother, I think we shall try our luck with the man behind us.”


End file.
